Economic impact of global software theft on U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and innovationby Prof. William Kerr and Dr. Chad Moutray

Intellectual property theft harms not just the owners of IP but the entire
U.S. economy. We focus on the economic impact of one such practice, software
theft, on the United States manufacturing sector. Software theft results in cost savings that firms can use to charge lower prices than their rivals, or invest in additional labor, capital, or R&D.

The study finds find that global software theft has imposed significant costs on the U.S. manufacturing sector over the past decade. Piracy cost U.S. manufacturers $239.9 billion in revenue from 2002-2012 and decreased U.S. GDP by $69.6 billion. During this period, the U.S. manufacturing sector lost over 42,000 jobs due to global piracy.

Addressing global software theft provides an opportunity for economic growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector. We estimate that reducing the global software piracy rate by 2.5 percentage points per year for 4 years would create 27,239 new manufacturing jobs, add $8.7 billion dollars to U.S. GDP, and generate $29.0 billion in revenue to manufacturers.

Survey of NAM members finds manufacturers united
in supporting action against piracy and IP theft

Case studies: company and industry perspectives on harm from global software theft

To further understand the impact of global software theft on U.S. companies, we present case studies on innovative U.S. companies and industries grappling with unfair competition from emerging markets:

Solar industry: global piracy
harms U.S.
innovation

AVTECH Software Inc.: domestic production
leads to security and innovation